


(Live every day like the ice cream store is closing.)

by softly (alexenglish)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 21:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11517729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexenglish/pseuds/softly
Summary: my five year plan is to maybe go out for ice cream this afternoon?





	(Live every day like the ice cream store is closing.)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pillarboxred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillarboxred/gifts).



> [a softer world project](http://queerlyalex.tumblr.com/asofterworld)

 

"I've got a bad feeling about this,” Louis says very seriously, turning to Danielle. They’re at the back of the parking lot, ultra tinted windows, but he’s twitchy as hell. It’d be cute, if he wasn’t stalling.

“C’mon, it’ll be fine,” she says, tapping the sunglasses compartment above her rear view mirror. There’s a spare pair in there, big white ones that easily cover half her face -- or his face. “Pull your hood up, slap these on.”

“It’s nearly dark,” he says, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. His fingers twitch, like he’s considering it.

“That’s the point,” she replies, turning in the driver’s seat and leaning over the center console, so he knows she’s serious. “It’ll be dark soon. There’s a huge crowd. Pull your  _hood up_  --” Danielle smiles as sweetly as she can, pushing her own sunglasses up so she can bat her eyelashes at him. Louis laughs out loud, burying his face in his hands. “ _Lewis_!”

“Alright, alright, stop whinging,” he says, dropping his hands. He might roll his eyes, but Danielle knows he’s hopelessly endeared by her. “’M not wearing the sunnies, but alright.”

" _Aw yes_!” she says, complete with a slow-mo fist pump, warm all through her insides when he laughs again, loud and startled. It’s not like he was going to say no, not when she drove them all the way out here, but she loves when he gives in.

She lets her sunglasses drop and leans in further, puckering her lips obviously. Louis meets her there, kisses her so gently she melts into it, goosebumps breaking out over her skin as he runs soft fingertips up her arm. The slow and deliberate way he kisses her is always feels like a surprise, no matter how many times it happens.

When she met him, she expected dominating kisses. Sharp like the edges of his grin and the look in his eyes when he set his sights on her, but the first time they kissed it was a question mark --  _is this okay?_  -- tender press of his lips to hers as his hands sweetly cupping her face.

He didn’t touch her anywhere else until she begged him to, but she never knew if that was by virtue of politeness, or a tease. Knowing Louis, it was probably a little bit of both.

He keeps kissing her now, harder and deeper, and she has to pull away with a huff. “You’re not getting out of this.”

“C’mon love,” he says, voice rough. A shiver works its way down her spine as he looks at her, eyes dark and serious. “Could hop in the back, sit in me lap.”

“The  _pier_ , Tomlinson,” Danielle says, pressing one last kiss to his lips before she tugs the keys out of the ignition. “You’ve never even been,” she reminds him. “It’s like, a whole experience that you’re missing out on.”

He sighs at her heavily, but it’s all for show. He’s smiling after they get out, eyes on the horizon -- the sunset is more subtle than she’s seen it in a long time. A smudge of red and orange and deep purple underneath the heavy dark blue of the coming night. The pier is already lit up, noisy from the beach and the birds and moving crowd.

“What if we get spotted, then?” he asks, obediently taking her hand when she holds it out for him. He lets her draw him in, falls into step with her.

“Then we leave,” she says.

“S’not always that easy,” Louis mutters, but he squeezes her fingers like an agreement, and Danielle thinks that means it’s okay either way.

Sometimes she can’t stand to think about the travelling circus that was his life in the band. It doesn’t make sense to her. She understands working -- she works hard, she does promo and events, but she can’t wrap her brain around it.

The way he’s been to the far reaches of every continent and hasn’t even seen the cities. How he spent so long living on tour buses, and all he saw was the inside of hotels and venues and fuselages. No real home, the only stability your band mates and crew.

Nothing to anchor him. All of it so temporary. She hates that.

He’s never even been to Santa Monica Pier.

“It’s important to stop and see everything,” she says. Hating it probably makes her a hypocrite, knowing there’s no permanence in them.

“Whatever you want, love,” he says. It’s not sarcastic, he’s completely serious. She grins at him.

She doesn’t know how she knows. Couldn’t say if she tried. 

They’re in love, she knows that. Truly, stupidly in love. It took no time at all for it to happen, for him to say it to her, for her to know it was true.

Sometimes when she’s exhausted and worn thin, all he has to do is smile at her and she wants to cry from happiness. Because he’s there, he’s with her, she can lean against him and he can hold up her tired weight, and they can just be.

But other times she looks at him and she knows. Their lives aren’t headed in the same direction. As much as she wants them to be, they’re not. There are still so many pieces of him she doesn’t have; that she can’t have, because other people have them. Stakes claimed long before she came along.

For some people it wouldn’t matter, but Louis is Louis, and all his attachments are deliberate and careful, and her thread is weaker than most, even after everything.

Most of the time, she thinks that's okay.

The setting sun softens the angles of Louis’ face with golden pink, catches in the wisps of hair escaping his hoodie, and it’s a dream she doesn’t want to wake up from, removed from everyone and everything else -- temporary, fleeting, necessary.

Danielle drags Louis over to the artist doing spray paint planets, a whole spread of glossy boards and aerosol cans surrounding her.  “These are my  _favorite_ ,” she says, watching intently as the artist layers the paint and uses a towel to texturize and flicks paint all over, a splatter of stars.

“I want to buy you 50,” he says softly, as Danielle films his smile, films their arms entwined, films their feet, films the artist. 

“I don’t think we could carry that many back to the car,” she replies, saving the videos.

They won’t end up on Instagram or anywhere else. She doesn’t know why. She’s captured and shared a lot of her life, but there are so many moments like this, moments that are theirs, that aren’t out there for the world to see -- keeping them for herself. 

It’s probably greedy, but she’s probably allowed to be. 

“I’ll buy you one when we walk back to the car,” Louis says, slinging his arm over her shoulder. “I’ll buy you one for every birthday and Christmas, until you have a whole room full of them.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Danielle says, pressing a kiss to his jaw. It doesn’t matter if it ends up being true or not, in the long run. All that matters is that he means it now, that at this very moment he’s thinking about her for so much longer. 

(And he will get her one for Christmas, even though they’ll break up before the new year. And he won’t wish her a happy birthday, but there will be a painting in the mail, rolled up and packaged in a cardboard tube -- planets in greens and blues, white speckled stars, and soft purple clouds. It will look like a dream, like their dream. And that will be the last time she’ll let herself cry over Louis Tomlinson, but until then...)

The Ferris wheel stops at the top, the highway and houses running alongside the beach on one side, the dark endless ocean on the other. Louis’ face is lit up by neon. She doesn’t think he’s stopped smiling since their feet hit the pier.

“Are you glad I made you come?” she asks smugly.

“Not in the least,” he says, managing a straight face for a whole three seconds before laughing out loud, holding her closer. He nudges at her cheek with the cold tip of his nose. “Always glad when you make me have fun, love.”

“As you should be,” she says, nodding seriously. 

His hand is on her cheek again, guiding her closer so he can kiss her as the Ferris wheel starts to move, their mouths catching gently like a sigh, making her belly going warm and fluttery. 

“Love you,” he says, right before they reach the bottom. "More than anything."

And she’s glad that, at least for now, it’s true. 

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog on tumblr](http://queerlyalex.tumblr.com/post/163049843152/live-every-day-like-the-ice-cream-store-is)


End file.
